Welcome to Neo Seoul, Korea. The year is 2070, and the nation has been surging ahead in global technology leadership. With chips that expand the limits of your mind and allow you to share pure ideas, technology and self-expression are intertwining to explore vast, new territory. But the corporate machine is exploring the landscape as well, along with all its resources, and problems with the technology are beginning to surface with very real consequences...
GOVERNANCE
Government Presence – 1
With a vast tension drop in Korean global politics, the nation surged into playing catch-up in the global market. In an effort to catalyze this race, regulations dropped like flies to give the private sector a boost and private citizens the ease of access to start their own business competition. Many of these regulations were decreed as suspended within the bills that deactivated them, but the sudden surge in corporate power from these drops gave the private sector all the lobbying power they needed to continuously delay their reenactment.
Everywhere that the government has stepped away, private businesses have stepped in to provide the same services for a fee.
Rule of Law – 3
While enforcement of the law for the average citizen has remained constant in Korea, low rates of crime have led to relative complacency of the average law enforcement personnel. In companies however, cybercrime has skyrocketed. With the absence of small businesses, and larger businesses consolidating inside of the tax haven that Korea has become, cyber criminals and white collar criminals everywhere see the country as an easy target. To combat this, laws have recently been passed that allow for the subpoenaing of memories held by witnesses.
The presence of the beat cop had lessened significantly due to the ability for the government to know almost anything they need. Physical crimes are mostly due to passions as opposed to wants or needs, and as such the average police officer rarely has need for any weapons larger than a stun baton or taser. In cases where such firepower is necessary, corporations avoid involving government law enforcement en lieu of having corporate military contractors.
Social Services – 4
Part of Korea’s efforts to bolster their global economic presence included civilian ease of access to essential services. In an increasingly information-based, global society, Korea was progressive in recognizing early on what goods and services were becoming more and more necessary to success. Programs were put into place with resounding success, and families across the country found it easier to get up off the ground. These programs provided ease of access to what were once considered luxuries, and kickstarted educational efforts to guide children’s way into the changing world. Housing efforts for the now burgeoning lower middle class have led to hive style housing and massive compounds made up of many tiny house modules.
In an effort to make Neo Seoul the most attractive place for companies to settle, and as a result of the recent years of wealth influx, the government has also pooled a lot of its funds in making child care and health services readily accessible to everyone who needs them. Cheap daycare facilities are present in most of the high rise office buildings themselves, some even contain entire schools designed and built to cater to the children of all of the office workers in the building. Some buildings even have their own hospitals, and all have around forty to sixty medical personnel to handle the day to day injuries in a building that houses several hundred thousand workers.
Public hospitals are free for all citizens of Neo Seoul, and use cutting edge technology to administer to the needs of the general public. These buildings are often shorter than other skyscrapers but far wider and contain some of the best technicians, surgeons, nurses and doctors in the world. Some more wealthy individuals come from halfway around the planet for some of the experimental surgeries that the hospitals offer in Neo Seoul and more than one ‘miracle’ performed has been nationally televised.
ECONOMICS
Economic Strength – 3↑
As a technological hub of AR-experience development and population-wide brain servers, Neo Seoul hasn’t had any real experience with economic struggle before. Although budgeting was tight back in the days of the war between North and South Korea, since the unification, the economic stability of the nation has levelled out nicely. Without the need to maintain a massive the military, the quality of social services and other community spaces has drastically risen thanks to the now available funds. While they may not be a particularly notable world power purely based on economic strength, this excess of leftover military funds in combination with prominent commercial exports allows the general population of the nation’s capital city, Neo Seoul, to live rather comfortably. That being said, there are still plenty of areas around the city that could qualify as “slums” or “ghettos” due to the lack of any real fair wealth distribution, but since the rise in multiplayer AR experiences, any dilapidated buildings, abandoned parks, and other general eyesores in the real world go unnoticed for the most part.
Wealth Distribution – 2
The poorest poor in Neo Seoul are richer than they were in the past. Homelessness is almost a memory of the past, and in its place has come a kind of wage labour slavery. Where there were beggars, there are now office jobs. Even those with little skill can learn how to answer phone calls and shuffle papers for companies too large for the incompetence of one to impact them in any serious negative way. The middle and lower classes share very similar levels of income, with the middle class trending towards managerial positions while the lower class are their subordinates and colleagues. Creative types tend towards either side of the scale, either making up the poorest poor or the most rich. The hyper-rich and their investors control more than 99% of the wealth produced or owned in Neo Seoul with everyone else taking up the still massive 1% share of the ludicrous wealth that the city produces.
Despite the overwhelmingly vast difference in wealth between the ultra rich and everyone below them, the middle class is growing and comfortable. The majority of people sit squarely inside of this income bracket and are the primary targets for all of the new inventions and space saving technology that Neo Seoul is producing. These people can easily raise a family, though many no longer feel the need to do so (since the city is already teeming with life), and take care of themselves through the bountiful social services market.
On the other hand, the lives of the super rich are so ludicrously opulent that modern language fails to express how truly rich they are. For them, life in a post scarcity household is what many earlier generations would have considered heaven to be like. The only limiting factor on how ridiculously extravagant they can make their homes or clothing is the scarcity of the materials to make them. To put it into perspective, if the richest person in Neo Seoul wanted to build the entirety of their personal skyscraper out of solid gold and diamonds, they would be able to (financially speaking) and still have only spent around half of their fortune. None of the CEO’s in Korea have done this (yet) simply due to the fact that having that much gold in one place would completely destabilize the world gold market which they rely on for much of their electronics manufacturing.
Agriculture and Trade – 5↑
Internally, the major class divide taking place in Neo Seoul does not stop the lower classes from buying into consumerism. Overall standards of living and a growing economy, alongside the strong social services from the Korean government, allow a fair amount of freedom to the lower classes.
Externally, the now most powerful technology company on the planet is based in Neo Seoul; the wealth is pouring into the capital.
Agriculture is booming in the rooftop gardens that cover all of the skyscrapers of Neo Seoul in a verdant patchwork of greens and browns. Cheap vegetables and fruits have led to a healthier population, and where cheap meat was produced now the poor and middle class have substituted for cheap soy meat substitutes that imitates the real thing almost perfectly. In combination with mods to sensory perception it doesn’t matter what the food actually tastes like, so long as your taste receptors are being overridden.
Real beef, chicken, lamb, or pork are reserved for the ultra rich. The upper middle class can afford the delicacy of skyscraper tank farm raised fish. As most people would say, what’s the point of eating something expensive when you can make food taste any way you want it to almost for free?
SOCIAL RELATIONS / EQUALITY
Race – 2↑
Even now, tensions between Japan and Korea persist from the previous millennium. Japan’s adamant position to ignore its militant past during the second World War and refuse most reparation requests from Korea has given the people of Neo Seoul a negative view of Japanese people. Recently, there have been moves by foreign governments to push Japan into talking with Korea on the matter, and it seems like they may soon agree. Currently, Japanese people living in Neo Seoul are often looked down on for acting as “bystanders" to their government's inaction, whereas Japanese people look down on Koreans for still being hung up on something from so long ago.
Relations between Korea and China have also been filled with tension. Official relations between the two countries only began somewhat recently, as the former South Korea was a long-time ally of Taiwan. Even though they are allies on paper, there is still a lot of distrust between the people of Korea and China, mainly due to suspicions actions on China’s behalf. There have been several instances of Chinese boats illegally fishing in Korean waters, and each time Korea has tried to bring it to the Chinese government’s attention, they’ve been quick to deny it without looking further into the problem. This gave the people of Neo Seoul a negative idea of the Chinese government and, by extension, its people.
Nonetheless, there are segments of the population of Neo Seoul that are pushing for closer relations between the three countries. One such segment goes by the name Foundation for Unification, which pushes for the government to look beyond wrongdoings of the past and look forward to building more stable relations with their close neighbors. Some politicians have begun to listen to the Foundation and adopt their beliefs, but not enough for an impact to be made overnight.
Class – 4
On the surface, Neo Seoul’s societal classes are divided by wealth. The consumer-level receptionists, office workers, and educators make up the middle-class, while company investors, producers, and CEOs making up the limited but incredibly significant upper-class. Despite the massive division between classes, the economic stability of Neo Seoul has near-eradicated any sort of lower-class citizenship.
The upper-class citizens reside in glossy penthouses and eye-catching high-rise buildings, usually capped with rooftop gardens or other extravagant outdoor spaces for hosting parties, entertaining guests, and revealing the latest advances in technology and business. Conversely, pipe-style housing has become the norm for the majority of Neo Seoul’s middle-class citizens. These houses, while lacking in luxury, are compact, eco-friendly, financially-conscious living options that save space around the city while providing the basic needs for living arrangements. Middle-class citizens have settled into accepting that their houses simply need to be a place for them to sleep at night, and if they want to experience more culture, excitement, or entertainment, they can explore the city instead of hosting any sort of events at their home. Despite not having as much to live with as the upper class, the technology that exists in the society allows them to be content with their lives.
While lower-class citizenship isn’t as pervasive as it used to be, there are still those who have draw the short end of the stick. Most people who live in this form of citizenship usually live in hive-like housing projects. Those who live there are either born into lower-class through heritage or have lost their finances through various means such as crime or job loss. Those who live in this class usually have limited access to the tech that the upper and middle class have, and thus live more analog lives in comparison. However, some residents of this class try to escape their fates by pooling together their finances and utilizing some public technologies. Some who are in lower level education invest in Brain Downloading for their children to give them an edge, with hopes that they can have better futures than the parents have (and maybe even hoping they save them from lower-class livelihood in the future as well). Others take a more straightforward approach and choose to abandon their own beings and seek out services that let them upload their minds and have them put into the bodies of a middle/upper-class citizen who desires not to exist anymore. Naturally, those services are underground and typically only know by the lower class and the few higher class people who seek out to be a part of this service.
Gender – 2
Due to the rise in mass marketing and the ease with which corporations can gather individualized data about the city’s inhabitants, gender has become an enormous selling point for the more influential companies of Neo Seoul. While gender isn’t inherently a point of contention for the population, advertisement campaigns are almost always split between heteronormative male and female demographics—flowery, “feminine” scents and foods, frilly clothes, and female-oriented products vs. classically “masculine” ideals and standards. These ad campaigns, whether intentional or not, have heavily perpetuated the idea of a two-gendered spectrum, and companies use this to their advantage in business frequently.
Although not as much of an issue in present times, there is also still a gender discrepancy in the workplace. This is most notable in higher-end companies, who have promoted less women over men despite the women being equally (often, more) qualified for the position, and in politics. A lot of this inequality is likely born from the country’s history of typical Confucian family values being so ingrained in their culture, the tendency to follow them persisted beyond the declining relevance of the rest of Confucian teachings.
Sexual Orientation – 3
Over time, most citizens of Korea began to be more open-minded toward LGBT people. Laws that had previously acted as discrimination, particularly against same-sex couples, have been abolished by the courts. With more exposure of LGBT people through the new technology, many hateful ideas toward same-sex couples have dissipated. Furthermore, due to the high density of the city’s population, there is no longer any sort of emphasis on the self-preservation of society.
Without the need to reproduce or steady the population, many inhabitants of the city no longer care whether or not someone is in a heterosexual relationship or not. Open-mindedness is far more common than it ever had been before the war, and because of this, many religious groups and public organizations have shown their support for any LGBT members of their communities by reassuring them that their sexual orientation will not affect the way they are viewed within these groups. Nonetheless, as it is nearly impossible for an entire nation to agree on one policy, there are still plenty of people, mainly in the older generations, who do not agree with same-sex marriage and fight the repeals of discriminatory laws. That being said, the overall acceptance and validation of LGBT couples has, at least for the time being, plateaued at a positive moment, and many members of the LGBT community hope that the general consensus around relationships outside of a heterosexual spectrum will continue to grow and change for the better in the years to follow.
Due to the pervading disparities in genders, it had been somewhat unheard of in the past for any advertising companies to include LGBT representation in their advertisements. However, as the normalization of LGBT-identifying individuals and LGBT-relationships progresses, it has become more and more commonplace to see billboard advertisements featuring same-sex couples.
CULTURAL INFLUENCES
Military – 1↓
With the disbandment of the Korean Demilitarized Zone and the unification of one Korea, the nation’s military investment has been slowly descending for decades. Without the threat of war constantly on their doorstep, Korea has embraced its potential as a technological powerhouse and been moving military funding towards social services. Enough time has passed for Korea to abandon the need of military might behind the rule of law, and so the presence of military personnel is not as common as it once was. These days, sightings of a uniform are limited to government bases and their surrounding communities.
The current state of the military is now mostly reduced to the equivalent of armed neighborhood watches and police enforcement. Some locations have established small “police stations” where those who sign up are assigned posts either around the various residential areas or the police station itself. Though most of these stations usually have good morals about how they enact justice (usually only pointing firearms at offenders at worst), other stations are secretly corrupt underneath. On occasion, certain members of some stations still have lingering racism and enact unfair justice upon outside races. The resulting actions of these stations have caused some tensions to rise however, and the large majority of citizens around the country have started to go against them. Unlike in the past however, with the great advent of technology, savvy individuals have led anonymous digital attacks on the stations and the members themselves. With cyber-terrorism happening more and more frequently, the number of incidents has thinned considerably (or at least as minimized as can reasonably be expected of society).
Religion – 4↑
With the strange occurrences with Brainstorm going on for many years, many have been turning to religion for answers. Buddhism and Protestant Christianity hold the overwhelming majority of influence in the nation, with Roman Catholicism bringing the three’s total occupation to near ubiquity, and they each offer very different takes on the phenomenon.
Buddhist temples have been interpreting the side effects as as sign that the bearer is approaching nirvana, with those suffering the worst symptoms as the closest to attaining its bliss.
While Christianity is adopting the consensus that these are signs from god, the message is still unclear. Protestants are leaning towards the interpretation of blessing while the Roman Catholic church asserts the damnation of victims; not without offering salvation, of course. The existence of the other religions is very miniscule in Neo Seoul. While there is no oppression or suppression of these religions, there are those in those communities who are trying their best to make themselves known, such as Hinduism. There are small communities that have been cultivated by immigrant foreigners who wish to provide the comfort of home religions to other immigrant foreigners. Thankfully, there are next to none of them who are dogmatic about them, although the very small minorities that are so are typically shunned by everyone including the other religious communities at large.
The advent of technology has helped the teaching of religions, not unlike how previous modern churches have used technology to assist teach the ways of a religion. While some are opposed to these sort of methods for the sake of religious purity, others are somewhat pragmatic in terms of thinking, and truly desire to help people understand the principles of their religion by any benevolent means possible. They range from holograms of famous figures to trial downloads of religious knowledge to interested individuals.
Technology – 5
Initially, the company Open Thought tried to preserve the brain’s life indefinitely. However, they could only keep the brain active for use, they couldn’t preserve the person inside. What they did manage to do was link their own minds with this this functioning brain to seamlessly expand their thinking speed and memorization space. Introducing: Brainstorm. With server rooms full of the brains collected from organ donors, users with the proprietary chip in their own minds can subscribe to thought space in the cloud, all over now-ubiquitous broadband wireless technology.
Brainstorm has been around for almost a couple decades, now. With the vast majority of citizens using the service, companies everywhere have tried to integrate with these chips. New research has discovered how to manipulate signals in the brain, rather than just keep them in order and transfer them, and augmented reality is gaining traction. People no longer just subscribe to mind space, but can share ideas and experiences. Whole entertainment industries are cropping up around this, and the arts are taking their time exploring this new medium.
However, any company has its own interests at heart, especially the ones that claim to look out for you. While Open Thought is vocal about their commitment to security and enforcing community terms and conditions for shared experiences—such as proper tagging, direct experience consent, etc.—people are literally putting their thoughts in the company’s hands, and advertisers are paying through the nose for this information. Green-screen billboards exist to be filled in by the AR experience, directly targeted to you based on your own thoughts. In addition, ghost thoughts have been creeping into the Brainstorm cloud. All those minds sitting in server rooms had their own thoughts once, and they appear to be popping up now and again. Some people are more susceptible to the phenomenon than others, and side effects can include erratic behavior all the way to dissociative identity. Open Thought has been secretive about why it is happening and what, if anything, they plan to do about this issue.
Arts & Culture – 3
As fashion is want to do, a newly emerging trend has brought back a dead fad: QR codes. They are integrated into clothing, often by sewing them as patches, and Brainstorm subscribers who allow these codes can see the AR outfit of the wearer. With material, practicality, and even physics tossed out the window, the limits of fashion have never been broader, and a craze of the unrealistic is sweeping the streets of Neo Seoul. Conversely, what now goes by “traditional” fashion—read, material fashion—is moving towards sleek outfits, embracing the simplicity of their designs as if in retaliation to the intricacies offered by augmented reality.
Fashion isn’t the only cultural field to begin exploring AR. As the Brainstorm chip becomes more and more widespread, artists have used its capabilities to reach out to their fans, while some up-and-comings have built their entire platform on it. Certain subscription memberships can allow fans access to methods of experiencing concerts in a whole new light—projecting their favorite performers into their very own living rooms, front-stage seats from the comfort of their own couches, and even access to live backstage, pre-performance, and post-performance video feeds. Some bands will even opt out of touring for months on end, arguing that when the experience of a single show can be broadcast live to venues across the globe, physical tours are no longer necessary.
Furthermore, many cuisine enthusiasts have started incorporating AR experiences into their culinary explorations. Although the technology is still, for the most part, in beta mode, restaurants and other nutritionist businesses have begun investigating the capability of transmitting the tastes and smells of certain dishes through the wireless chips in the brains of Neo Seoul’s population. This technology would allow the possibility of immersive advertising—a billboard that fills your mouth with the flavors of a new cheesecake, for example—as well as a practical solution to problems that arise when certain dishes are missing key ingredients or when imports of certain shipments don’t make it to the restaurants on time. In those situations, rather than declaring certain menu items temporarily unavailable, a rather plain meal would be presented to the customers, but through the use of AR technology, would allow these seemingly bland dishes to taste akin to the finest meats and spices imaginable.
Table of Contents
WORLD NAME: Neo Seoul
SCOPE: Seoul, South Korea
SEQUENCE/YEAR: 2070
MAP LINK: https://drive.google.com/open?id=18PUUqDQPAZaidSkAt9VIGPM7FRtkPuxp&usp=sharing
Welcome to Neo Seoul, Korea. The year is 2070, and the nation has been surging ahead in global technology leadership. With chips that expand the limits of your mind and allow you to share pure ideas, technology and self-expression are intertwining to explore vast, new territory. But the corporate machine is exploring the landscape as well, along with all its resources, and problems with the technology are beginning to surface with very real consequences...
GOVERNANCE
Government Presence – 1
With a vast tension drop in Korean global politics, the nation surged into playing catch-up in the global market. In an effort to catalyze this race, regulations dropped like flies to give the private sector a boost and private citizens the ease of access to start their own business competition. Many of these regulations were decreed as suspended within the bills that deactivated them, but the sudden surge in corporate power from these drops gave the private sector all the lobbying power they needed to continuously delay their reenactment.Everywhere that the government has stepped away, private businesses have stepped in to provide the same services for a fee.
Rule of Law – 3
While enforcement of the law for the average citizen has remained constant in Korea, low rates of crime have led to relative complacency of the average law enforcement personnel. In companies however, cybercrime has skyrocketed. With the absence of small businesses, and larger businesses consolidating inside of the tax haven that Korea has become, cyber criminals and white collar criminals everywhere see the country as an easy target. To combat this, laws have recently been passed that allow for the subpoenaing of memories held by witnesses.The presence of the beat cop had lessened significantly due to the ability for the government to know almost anything they need. Physical crimes are mostly due to passions as opposed to wants or needs, and as such the average police officer rarely has need for any weapons larger than a stun baton or taser. In cases where such firepower is necessary, corporations avoid involving government law enforcement en lieu of having corporate military contractors.
Social Services – 4
Part of Korea’s efforts to bolster their global economic presence included civilian ease of access to essential services. In an increasingly information-based, global society, Korea was progressive in recognizing early on what goods and services were becoming more and more necessary to success. Programs were put into place with resounding success, and families across the country found it easier to get up off the ground. These programs provided ease of access to what were once considered luxuries, and kickstarted educational efforts to guide children’s way into the changing world. Housing efforts for the now burgeoning lower middle class have led to hive style housing and massive compounds made up of many tiny house modules.In an effort to make Neo Seoul the most attractive place for companies to settle, and as a result of the recent years of wealth influx, the government has also pooled a lot of its funds in making child care and health services readily accessible to everyone who needs them. Cheap daycare facilities are present in most of the high rise office buildings themselves, some even contain entire schools designed and built to cater to the children of all of the office workers in the building. Some buildings even have their own hospitals, and all have around forty to sixty medical personnel to handle the day to day injuries in a building that houses several hundred thousand workers.
Public hospitals are free for all citizens of Neo Seoul, and use cutting edge technology to administer to the needs of the general public. These buildings are often shorter than other skyscrapers but far wider and contain some of the best technicians, surgeons, nurses and doctors in the world. Some more wealthy individuals come from halfway around the planet for some of the experimental surgeries that the hospitals offer in Neo Seoul and more than one ‘miracle’ performed has been nationally televised.
ECONOMICS
Economic Strength – 3↑
As a technological hub of AR-experience development and population-wide brain servers, Neo Seoul hasn’t had any real experience with economic struggle before. Although budgeting was tight back in the days of the war between North and South Korea, since the unification, the economic stability of the nation has levelled out nicely. Without the need to maintain a massive the military, the quality of social services and other community spaces has drastically risen thanks to the now available funds. While they may not be a particularly notable world power purely based on economic strength, this excess of leftover military funds in combination with prominent commercial exports allows the general population of the nation’s capital city, Neo Seoul, to live rather comfortably. That being said, there are still plenty of areas around the city that could qualify as “slums” or “ghettos” due to the lack of any real fair wealth distribution, but since the rise in multiplayer AR experiences, any dilapidated buildings, abandoned parks, and other general eyesores in the real world go unnoticed for the most part.Wealth Distribution – 2
The poorest poor in Neo Seoul are richer than they were in the past. Homelessness is almost a memory of the past, and in its place has come a kind of wage labour slavery. Where there were beggars, there are now office jobs. Even those with little skill can learn how to answer phone calls and shuffle papers for companies too large for the incompetence of one to impact them in any serious negative way. The middle and lower classes share very similar levels of income, with the middle class trending towards managerial positions while the lower class are their subordinates and colleagues. Creative types tend towards either side of the scale, either making up the poorest poor or the most rich. The hyper-rich and their investors control more than 99% of the wealth produced or owned in Neo Seoul with everyone else taking up the still massive 1% share of the ludicrous wealth that the city produces.Despite the overwhelmingly vast difference in wealth between the ultra rich and everyone below them, the middle class is growing and comfortable. The majority of people sit squarely inside of this income bracket and are the primary targets for all of the new inventions and space saving technology that Neo Seoul is producing. These people can easily raise a family, though many no longer feel the need to do so (since the city is already teeming with life), and take care of themselves through the bountiful social services market.
On the other hand, the lives of the super rich are so ludicrously opulent that modern language fails to express how truly rich they are. For them, life in a post scarcity household is what many earlier generations would have considered heaven to be like. The only limiting factor on how ridiculously extravagant they can make their homes or clothing is the scarcity of the materials to make them. To put it into perspective, if the richest person in Neo Seoul wanted to build the entirety of their personal skyscraper out of solid gold and diamonds, they would be able to (financially speaking) and still have only spent around half of their fortune. None of the CEO’s in Korea have done this (yet) simply due to the fact that having that much gold in one place would completely destabilize the world gold market which they rely on for much of their electronics manufacturing.
Agriculture and Trade – 5↑
Internally, the major class divide taking place in Neo Seoul does not stop the lower classes from buying into consumerism. Overall standards of living and a growing economy, alongside the strong social services from the Korean government, allow a fair amount of freedom to the lower classes.Externally, the now most powerful technology company on the planet is based in Neo Seoul; the wealth is pouring into the capital.
Agriculture is booming in the rooftop gardens that cover all of the skyscrapers of Neo Seoul in a verdant patchwork of greens and browns. Cheap vegetables and fruits have led to a healthier population, and where cheap meat was produced now the poor and middle class have substituted for cheap soy meat substitutes that imitates the real thing almost perfectly. In combination with mods to sensory perception it doesn’t matter what the food actually tastes like, so long as your taste receptors are being overridden.
Real beef, chicken, lamb, or pork are reserved for the ultra rich. The upper middle class can afford the delicacy of skyscraper tank farm raised fish. As most people would say, what’s the point of eating something expensive when you can make food taste any way you want it to almost for free?
SOCIAL RELATIONS / EQUALITY
Race – 2↑
Even now, tensions between Japan and Korea persist from the previous millennium. Japan’s adamant position to ignore its militant past during the second World War and refuse most reparation requests from Korea has given the people of Neo Seoul a negative view of Japanese people. Recently, there have been moves by foreign governments to push Japan into talking with Korea on the matter, and it seems like they may soon agree. Currently, Japanese people living in Neo Seoul are often looked down on for acting as “bystanders" to their government's inaction, whereas Japanese people look down on Koreans for still being hung up on something from so long ago.Relations between Korea and China have also been filled with tension. Official relations between the two countries only began somewhat recently, as the former South Korea was a long-time ally of Taiwan. Even though they are allies on paper, there is still a lot of distrust between the people of Korea and China, mainly due to suspicions actions on China’s behalf. There have been several instances of Chinese boats illegally fishing in Korean waters, and each time Korea has tried to bring it to the Chinese government’s attention, they’ve been quick to deny it without looking further into the problem. This gave the people of Neo Seoul a negative idea of the Chinese government and, by extension, its people.
Nonetheless, there are segments of the population of Neo Seoul that are pushing for closer relations between the three countries. One such segment goes by the name Foundation for Unification, which pushes for the government to look beyond wrongdoings of the past and look forward to building more stable relations with their close neighbors. Some politicians have begun to listen to the Foundation and adopt their beliefs, but not enough for an impact to be made overnight.
Class – 4
On the surface, Neo Seoul’s societal classes are divided by wealth. The consumer-level receptionists, office workers, and educators make up the middle-class, while company investors, producers, and CEOs making up the limited but incredibly significant upper-class. Despite the massive division between classes, the economic stability of Neo Seoul has near-eradicated any sort of lower-class citizenship.The upper-class citizens reside in glossy penthouses and eye-catching high-rise buildings, usually capped with rooftop gardens or other extravagant outdoor spaces for hosting parties, entertaining guests, and revealing the latest advances in technology and business. Conversely, pipe-style housing has become the norm for the majority of Neo Seoul’s middle-class citizens. These houses, while lacking in luxury, are compact, eco-friendly, financially-conscious living options that save space around the city while providing the basic needs for living arrangements.
Middle-class citizens have settled into accepting that their houses simply need to be a place for them to sleep at night, and if they want to experience more culture, excitement, or entertainment, they can explore the city instead of hosting any sort of events at their home. Despite not having as much to live with as the upper class, the technology that exists in the society allows them to be content with their lives.
While lower-class citizenship isn’t as pervasive as it used to be, there are still those who have draw the short end of the stick. Most people who live in this form of citizenship usually live in hive-like housing projects. Those who live there are either born into lower-class through heritage or have lost their finances through various means such as crime or job loss. Those who live in this class usually have limited access to the tech that the upper and middle class have, and thus live more analog lives in comparison. However, some residents of this class try to escape their fates by pooling together their finances and utilizing some public technologies. Some who are in lower level education invest in Brain Downloading for their children to give them an edge, with hopes that they can have better futures than the parents have (and maybe even hoping they save them from lower-class livelihood in the future as well). Others take a more straightforward approach and choose to abandon their own beings and seek out services that let them upload their minds and have them put into the bodies of a middle/upper-class citizen who desires not to exist anymore. Naturally, those services are underground and typically only know by the lower class and the few higher class people who seek out to be a part of this service.
Gender – 2
Due to the rise in mass marketing and the ease with which corporations can gather individualized data about the city’s inhabitants, gender has become an enormous selling point for the more influential companies of Neo Seoul. While gender isn’t inherently a point of contention for the population, advertisement campaigns are almost always split between heteronormative male and female demographics—flowery, “feminine” scents and foods, frilly clothes, and female-oriented products vs. classically “masculine” ideals and standards. These ad campaigns, whether intentional or not, have heavily perpetuated the idea of a two-gendered spectrum, and companies use this to their advantage in business frequently.Although not as much of an issue in present times, there is also still a gender discrepancy in the workplace. This is most notable in higher-end companies, who have promoted less women over men despite the women being equally (often, more) qualified for the position, and in politics. A lot of this inequality is likely born from the country’s history of typical Confucian family values being so ingrained in their culture, the tendency to follow them persisted beyond the declining relevance of the rest of Confucian teachings.
Sexual Orientation – 3
Over time, most citizens of Korea began to be more open-minded toward LGBT people. Laws that had previously acted as discrimination, particularly against same-sex couples, have been abolished by the courts. With more exposure of LGBT people through the new technology, many hateful ideas toward same-sex couples have dissipated. Furthermore, due to the high density of the city’s population, there is no longer any sort of emphasis on the self-preservation of society.Without the need to reproduce or steady the population, many inhabitants of the city no longer care whether or not someone is in a heterosexual relationship or not. Open-mindedness is far more common than it ever had been before the war, and because of this, many religious groups and public organizations have shown their support for any LGBT members of their communities by reassuring them that their sexual orientation will not affect the way they are viewed within these groups. Nonetheless, as it is nearly impossible for an entire nation to agree on one policy, there are still plenty of people, mainly in the older generations, who do not agree with same-sex marriage and fight the repeals of discriminatory laws. That being said, the overall acceptance and validation of LGBT couples has, at least for the time being, plateaued at a positive moment, and many members of the LGBT community hope that the general consensus around relationships outside of a heterosexual spectrum will continue to grow and change for the better in the years to follow.
Due to the pervading disparities in genders, it had been somewhat unheard of in the past for any advertising companies to include LGBT representation in their advertisements. However, as the normalization of LGBT-identifying individuals and LGBT-relationships progresses, it has become more and more commonplace to see billboard advertisements featuring same-sex couples.
CULTURAL INFLUENCES
Military – 1↓
With the disbandment of the Korean Demilitarized Zone and the unification of one Korea, the nation’s military investment has been slowly descending for decades. Without the threat of war constantly on their doorstep, Korea has embraced its potential as a technological powerhouse and been moving military funding towards social services. Enough time has passed for Korea to abandon the need of military might behind the rule of law, and so the presence of military personnel is not as common as it once was. These days, sightings of a uniform are limited to government bases and their surrounding communities.The current state of the military is now mostly reduced to the equivalent of armed neighborhood watches and police enforcement. Some locations have established small “police stations” where those who sign up are assigned posts either around the various residential areas or the police station itself. Though most of these stations usually have good morals about how they enact justice (usually only pointing firearms at offenders at worst), other stations are secretly corrupt underneath. On occasion, certain members of some stations still have lingering racism and enact unfair justice upon outside races. The resulting actions of these stations have caused some tensions to rise however, and the large majority of citizens around the country have started to go against them. Unlike in the past however, with the great advent of technology, savvy individuals have led anonymous digital attacks on the stations and the members themselves. With cyber-terrorism happening more and more frequently, the number of incidents has thinned considerably (or at least as minimized as can reasonably be expected of society).
Religion – 4↑
With the strange occurrences with Brainstorm going on for many years, many have been turning to religion for answers. Buddhism and Protestant Christianity hold the overwhelming majority of influence in the nation, with Roman Catholicism bringing the three’s total occupation to near ubiquity, and they each offer very different takes on the phenomenon.Buddhist temples have been interpreting the side effects as as sign that the bearer is approaching nirvana, with those suffering the worst symptoms as the closest to attaining its bliss.
While Christianity is adopting the consensus that these are signs from god, the message is still unclear. Protestants are leaning towards the interpretation of blessing while the Roman Catholic church asserts the damnation of victims; not without offering salvation, of course.
The existence of the other religions is very miniscule in Neo Seoul. While there is no oppression or suppression of these religions, there are those in those communities who are trying their best to make themselves known, such as Hinduism. There are small communities that have been cultivated by immigrant foreigners who wish to provide the comfort of home religions to other immigrant foreigners. Thankfully, there are next to none of them who are dogmatic about them, although the very small minorities that are so are typically shunned by everyone including the other religious communities at large.
The advent of technology has helped the teaching of religions, not unlike how previous modern churches have used technology to assist teach the ways of a religion. While some are opposed to these sort of methods for the sake of religious purity, others are somewhat pragmatic in terms of thinking, and truly desire to help people understand the principles of their religion by any benevolent means possible. They range from holograms of famous figures to trial downloads of religious knowledge to interested individuals.
Technology – 5
Initially, the company Open Thought tried to preserve the brain’s life indefinitely. However, they could only keep the brain active for use, they couldn’t preserve the person inside. What they did manage to do was link their own minds with this this functioning brain to seamlessly expand their thinking speed and memorization space. Introducing: Brainstorm. With server rooms full of the brains collected from organ donors, users with the proprietary chip in their own minds can subscribe to thought space in the cloud, all over now-ubiquitous broadband wireless technology.Brainstorm has been around for almost a couple decades, now. With the vast majority of citizens using the service, companies everywhere have tried to integrate with these chips. New research has discovered how to manipulate signals in the brain, rather than just keep them in order and transfer them, and augmented reality is gaining traction. People no longer just subscribe to mind space, but can share ideas and experiences. Whole entertainment industries are cropping up around this, and the arts are taking their time exploring this new medium.
However, any company has its own interests at heart, especially the ones that claim to look out for you. While Open Thought is vocal about their commitment to security and enforcing community terms and conditions for shared experiences—such as proper tagging, direct experience consent, etc.—people are literally putting their thoughts in the company’s hands, and advertisers are paying through the nose for this information. Green-screen billboards exist to be filled in by the AR experience, directly targeted to you based on your own thoughts. In addition, ghost thoughts have been creeping into the Brainstorm cloud. All those minds sitting in server rooms had their own thoughts once, and they appear to be popping up now and again. Some people are more susceptible to the phenomenon than others, and side effects can include erratic behavior all the way to dissociative identity. Open Thought has been secretive about why it is happening and what, if anything, they plan to do about this issue.
Arts & Culture – 3
As fashion is want to do, a newly emerging trend has brought back a dead fad: QR codes. They are integrated into clothing, often by sewing them as patches, and Brainstorm subscribers who allow these codes can see the AR outfit of the wearer. With material, practicality, and even physics tossed out the window, the limits of fashion have never been broader, and a craze of the unrealistic is sweeping the streets of Neo Seoul. Conversely, what now goes by “traditional” fashion—read, material fashion—is moving towards sleek outfits, embracing the simplicity of their designs as if in retaliation to the intricacies offered by augmented reality.Fashion isn’t the only cultural field to begin exploring AR. As the Brainstorm chip becomes more and more widespread, artists have used its capabilities to reach out to their fans, while some up-and-comings have built their entire platform on it. Certain subscription memberships can allow fans access to methods of experiencing concerts in a whole new light—projecting their favorite performers into their very own living rooms, front-stage seats from the comfort of their own couches, and even access to live backstage, pre-performance, and post-performance video feeds. Some bands will even opt out of touring for months on end, arguing that when the experience of a single show can be broadcast live to venues across the globe, physical tours are no longer necessary.
Furthermore, many cuisine enthusiasts have started incorporating AR experiences into their culinary explorations. Although the technology is still, for the most part, in beta mode, restaurants and other nutritionist businesses have begun investigating the capability of transmitting the tastes and smells of certain dishes through the wireless chips in the brains of Neo Seoul’s population. This technology would allow the possibility of immersive advertising—a billboard that fills your mouth with the flavors of a new cheesecake, for example—as well as a practical solution to problems that arise when certain dishes are missing key ingredients or when imports of certain shipments don’t make it to the restaurants on time. In those situations, rather than declaring certain menu items temporarily unavailable, a rather plain meal would be presented to the customers, but through the use of AR technology, would allow these seemingly bland dishes to taste akin to the finest meats and spices imaginable.